Personal Income & Spending Align
Consumer confidence is at multi-year highs while personal income and wage levels for April were declining on a nominal basis. Without the boost of 0.2% “deflation”, disposable personal income actually...
View ArticleIt Simply Doesn’t Add Up, Wages Edition
Labor unrest is an expected feature of a malfunctioning economy. The 1970’s, for example, were rife with labor problems up and down the economic scale and across industries. Agitation for wage growth...
View ArticleWhere’s The Income Growth?
Continuing on with the theme of orthodox interpretation vs. context, in order to determine not just the relative position of the economy but how that relates to “markets” vis-à-vis bubbles, the current...
View ArticleSpending Follows Income, Or Why The Economy Really Isn’t Much Better
I’m not sure what basis there is for expecting a robust holiday season. Even factoring the move in the unemployment rate and upward revisions to GDP in the past two quarters, none of that has done...
View ArticleThere Are No ‘Tailwinds’
With the Chinese manufacturing indications “unexpectedly” disappointing over the weekend it was absolutely no surprise that US estimates of income and especially spending would as well. These overall,...
View ArticleOptimism/Pessimism: Stocks At Record Highs While Savings Rate Jumps
Stocks had a great day today unshaken by whether the manufacturing part of the economy was growing more quickly or at the slowest rate in 13 months. Confusion isn’t part of the asset inflation lexicon....
View ArticleNo Wonder The Fed’s Desperation To Avoid Admitting the Bunker
Personal spending fell slightly in April, making three of the last five months for declines. Such a sustained slump is actually quite rare, and you have to go back to the Great Recession to find...
View ArticleTurning Just 2.4% Income Growth Into A Robust Recovery
Today’s release of personal income and spending is very much related to the revised GDP figures, though I have no doubt that the BEA wishes it were not. To start with, the ongoing chain of benchmark...
View ArticleAlways Back To Income (Lack Of)
Spending and wage growth disappointed in September, particularly as incomes continue to register barely any growth. The fact that this stagnation has continued for several years allows commentary such...
View ArticlePersonal Savings Up Meaning No Energy ‘Tax Cut’ Reaches Consumers
If China and US manufacturing are suffering from what looks like the contours of a slowly progressing recession, we don’t have to go very far to find the genesis. The common denominator is and has been...
View ArticleAlways About Income
The emphasis on the labor market has become ubiquitous but it is not being used in the manner with which it should be used. It is now permanently attached to words like “despite” or “in contrast” no...
View ArticlePersonal Income And Spending Change Again
The only economic data of note today was the notoriously unreliable personal income and spending figures. The data series contained within the suite are subject to not just major benchmark revisions...
View ArticleIncomes Slow Some More And (Relatedly) Inflation Remains Absent
Personal Income and Spending continue to suggest only further weakness. While there is a whole lot of caution necessary when analyzing this data due to its susceptibility to large revisions, there is...
View ArticleJust Not There; Income To Spending To Inflation
Nominal personal spending grew by just over 4% in October 2016, a number that sounds impressive by virtue of what we have become used to in this economy. That was much less than the 5.2% in spending...
View ArticleThey Changed The Savings Rate, At Least
I wrote back in August 2016 out of frustration. There were any number of topics to have become flustered over at the time, but on this particular occasion it was the personal savings rate. Because it...
View ArticlePersonal Savings Up Meaning No Energy ‘Tax Cut’ Reaches Consumers
If China and US manufacturing are suffering from what looks like the contours of a slowly progressing recession, we don’t have to go very far to find the genesis. The common denominator is and has been...
View ArticleAlways About Income
The emphasis on the labor market has become ubiquitous but it is not being used in the manner with which it should be used. It is now permanently attached to words like “despite” or “in contrast” no...
View ArticlePersonal Income And Spending Change Again
The only economic data of note today was the notoriously unreliable personal income and spending figures. The data series contained within the suite are subject to not just major benchmark revisions...
View ArticleIncomes Slow Some More And (Relatedly) Inflation Remains Absent
Personal Income and Spending continue to suggest only further weakness. While there is a whole lot of caution necessary when analyzing this data due to its susceptibility to large revisions, there is...
View ArticleJust Not There; Income To Spending To Inflation
Nominal personal spending grew by just over 4% in October 2016, a number that sounds impressive by virtue of what we have become used to in this economy. That was much less than the 5.2% in spending...
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